Pianist Grant Levin enlists master reed player Noel Jewkes, bassist Kash Killion and drummer Mark Lee for three sets of small combo work. Each of these players is a seasoned pro with a stellar reputation in the Bay Area. All welcome!  $10 cover charge; $7 for members of “jazz club!” ($75 annual dues).

R.I.P. Ornette Coleman, who gave us the shape of jazz to come

San Francisco Book Launch and Reading! Sons Of Noir: Murder and Mayhem by San Francisco North Bay Writers, edited by Ed Coletti and David Madgalene Contributors: David Beckman, Gary Brandt, Ed Coletti, David Madgalene, Pat Nolan, Jonah Raskin and Waights Taylor, Jr. Publisher: Round Barn Press, Santa Rosa, CA (June 7, 2015)

This week, Smith shares the front line with fellow tenor player Raffi Garabedian (once a Bay Area player who’s been plying his trade in NYC for a good stretch) with bassist Noah Schenker and drummer Jon Arkin providing the foundation, the pulse and much fine filigree.

It may be windy and foggy and cold outside, but the calendar still says May — and that means Spring. For twenty years now, Sherri has curated an intriguing set list of tunes befitting everyone’s favorite season — swinging from the familiar to the obscure, from Clifford Brown and Tad Dameron to Rodgers and Hammerstein,…

Poet Latif Harris examines aging and the tricks memory plays on the instrument of the mind in his new collection of poems, to be presented at Bird & Beckett on May 31st at 2 pm. The book, Barter Within the Bark of Trees, has just been published by Duende Press — which published his first book…